Feedback on Government Regulation of Games

Today, as we're reporting on the House investigation into Rockstar and the Illinois violent games law, Gamasutra is offering up industry responses to a question concerning the role that government should play in games. From the article: "Government legislation would be a disaster. The ESRB rating is a good enough system. I seriously doubt that the number of employees at retail stores selling 'Mature' games to minors is greater than the number of parents who let their children buy the game. If their parents won't let them play it, chances are they have a friend who has it and they play it at their friends' house. If parents want to censor their kids, they need to be the ones to do it; the government is not responsible for raising children. -Cari Begle, Stardock"

Comments

The Courts Agree With You, Cari.

[Tyrsenus]

"While it is beyond doubt that 'parents' claim to authority in their own household to direct the rearing of their children is basic in the structure of our society,' [Ginsberg v. New York (1968)] the question here is whether the County constitutionally may limit first amendment rights as a means of aiding parental authority. We hold that, under the circumstances presented in this case, it cannot."

-Interactive Digital Software Association v. St. Louis County, Missouri.

Like many other areas

[alvinrod]

government would best serve this country by staying the hell out if it can help it. However, things seem to have gotten to the point where the government really can't help it.

It's pretty obvious that parents on some scale are refusing to take enough of an active interest in the lives of their children to prevent them from acquiring content that may not be suitable for them (or anyone else for that matter). Rather than policing their children, some people would rather have the government do it. If Bob and Jane won't stop little Billy from getting his hands on a "murder simulator" then someone has to, obviously. The government could say, "No! Raise your own damned kids," but would likely find themselves replaced by a government that says "Sure, we'll raise your kids." Some would argue that holding the parents responsible as a good alternative, but which is easier for a government: Give in to the voting public and stay in office or alienate the voting public and get replaced by someone who will give in anyway?

If anything, the Federal government should stay as far away from this as possible. If California, New York, or Illinois wants to do something about it within their own state, they can go right ahead. What those particular states might want isn't necessarily something that my state might.

If the government did have to do something on a national level, I'd suggest creating an organization to replace the ESRB, which really has little to no authority or power to do anything other than assign a largely inadiquate lable to any game that is given to it for review. I'd like to see three primary elements of a game catagorically rated: violence, profanity, and sexuality. Games like GTA would score quite high in violence because of the ability to kill anyone in almost any manner, moderately high in terms of profanity, especially given the more recent installments, but on the low end in sexuality even with the Hot Coffee mod. Although I've never played Playboy Mansion, I'm sure that while it would score high in sexuality, violence would probably be a big zero.

A rating system that scored games based on individual attributes rather than taking it all into consideration and giving it a broad rating that encompasses several different factors. For instance, as one of the comments in the article mentions: "Finally, the ESRB's rating system has a fatal flaw of not distinguishing between games like Halo (scifi, shooting aliens) and games like GTA (shooting cops, sex with hookers, drugs, etc.). They're both rated M. Since AO is retail suicide, everyone avoids it like the plague and it has become useless."

Having such general ratings really limits an easy method of choosing content that might be suitable for you or your children. An M rated game about bashing someone with profane language and various racial/religous slurs is much different than an M rated game about bashing someone's head in with a claw hammer. you might not mind some raunchy language but violence might sicken you. It's much the same way with movies. A movie can be rated R for excessive violence, language, or sexuality. In a similar fashion you might not mind if your children of age 16 see a movie with a lot of fowl language, but you might not want them to see anything with a lot of sex or violence. A rating system that breaks a game into a few core catagories and gives rating for each catagory would better serve parents and people in deciding which content would be suitable for them or their children.

Re:What's going on here?

[shoptroll]

"1) If they really gave a shit about our kids there would have been a shitstorm over GTA the FIRST time around. Not the THIRD. Who knows? Maybe Rockstar didn't capitulate to Congressional extortion."

Actually, it's worse than that. This is the 5th (6th if you count GTA:Advanced on GBA) game in the series. Why there hasn't been anything more before this is beyond me (Vice City for me starts to push the envelope at times)

To much time on there hands?

[AlltheCoolNamesGone]

I can't understand why Congress actually waste time and money on stupid things like this.

Why must everything in this country be cured by legislation? Why can't we as a society take responsibility for our own action and the actions of our children? It's common sense yet nobody, especially the media (for obvious reasons), ever actually says "Hey we don't need you to tell us what we can or can't do".

I'm going to be sick

[Tachikoma]

This is so stupid it makes me nauseous. Where did these whiney politicians come from and why the f did we put them there?

Sometimes stupidity humors me but now its getting ridiculous.
It just reminds me of the South Park movie. "Violence is ok, as long as they don't use any naughty words!!"

Ultimately, this reminds me of a friend I had in college. She grew up in a strict home. She didn't care about video games, so her parents never touched that one, but she did like sweets, which her parents limited to a notch above ZERO. So of course she would take any opportunity to eat some at a friends house, because their parents were "down with sweets".

Fast forward to college, when she didn't live under mommy and daddy's roof. She got fat. Not freshman 15, we're talking 30-40 lbs. No, not booze, CANDY. She made meals of the stuff, because it was so taboo in her house and now she was free! Keeping sweets from her only made her want it more. If had been exposed and educated on the cow-like effects caused by twinkies and twix, maybe she would be hot again. sadly, not the case.

I hate to sound like a hippie, and I mean HATE to, but seriously education is the answer here. That and taking a moment of parents sweet, precious time to PAY ATTENTION TO THEIR KIDS. I played any and every damn game I could get my hands on, violent or not. My parents didn't care, because they made sure I understood the difference between video games and reality (its not too far fetched...). I grew up around a buttload of guns too, my dad being a fan of hunting, and I've yet to be violent, let alone shoot someone, because I know guns == DANGA'!

my parents raised me, not let the government do it. And when I screwed up, I, me, the perpetrator, suffered the consequences. Not the Publisher/Developer of PAPER BOY, and certainly not Canada. Although Canada IS to blame for their silly looking "Mounties".......what a name.

Waste of our Tax Dollars

[robbway]

These special interest Congressional inquiries are a complete and total waste of American Tax Dollars. Let's compare it with steroid use in baseball. Both are internal issues in a self-regulated system. Both will change their policies to match the perceived societal "norm." Both fixed the problem to the best of their abilities prior to inquiry. There was/will be no new information uncovered by this inquiry. Finally, the "problem" is so vast, it will never be fixed.

In the case of video games, unintentional Easter Eggs will remain, people will cheat, and people will mod. What is really the key to this issue is that the difference in ratings between M and AO is arbitrary.

Where's the value?

[Fished]

Customarily, the courts have made it much harder for gov't to restrict freedom of speech when the speech itself has a redeeming value to society. The problem with games like GTA is that it's really hard to come up with some sort of redeeming value for a video game that involves stealing cars (and now, kinky sex.) Our society does have standards, and one of those standards is that car theft is bad. It's also quite hard to find any esthetic value in it--do the makers of GTA leave their cars unattended in downtown areas for the joy of car theft?

I understand where folks are coming from with the slippery slope aspect of this, but I really think that we would be much better served to focus on protecting speech that is a bit more ... errm... substantial than gory video games.

You know....

[vertinox]

I can think about 50 things that are more important than sex in video games.

High gas prices and email spam being two of them.

And then there are those life threatening war related things such as finding WMD's and Osama Bin Laden or just making making a big fuss on why on earth we didn't find either instead of spending all this effort into complaining about sex in a video game.

It's like complaining that the radio is too risque after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. To sum it up bluntly:

FOR F***S SAKE PEOPLE WE ARE AT WAR!!! PEOPLE ARE DYING ON A DAILY BASIS AND ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT IS SEX IN A VIDEO GAME!

So... Umm... Yeah... I should write a letter to Hillary, because I would like to see a woman in the Whitehouse, but I think she needs to talk about important issues instead of things like this.